As health care evolves, UC Davis Health is guided by our vision to provide exceptional care and extraordinary compassion to our patients and communities, especially the most vulnerable, while delivering leading-edge instruction to our medical and nursing students so they can help us to revolutionize patient care. We’re rapidly enhancing our digital platforms to better serve patients in more expansive and efficient ways, and seizing on opportunities the pandemic has created to accelerate the benefits of digital health for everyone.
In this innovative spirit, this issue of UC Davis Health magazine provides highlights of what we’ve recently achieved, including some stories about our response to the pandemic, but also a novel School of Medicine M.D. pathway, Vietnamese refugee dementia research, engaging alumni activities, and a momentous groundbreaking for Aggie Square — the first new research space to be added to the Sacramento Campus of UC Davis in more than 40 years. Other content spotlights the late emeritus professor Faith Fitzgerald, medical school students, and updates on our rising rankings and prolific research.
Looking ahead, the future of health care will be dominated by algorithms promoting care by exception, big data availability across multiple platforms, and artificial intelligence’s role in helping all practitioners to provide more precise personalized care and wellness. We’re beyond the brink of this transformation because it’s happening now. The health industry can improve how it treats patients, as every person’s health journey is different. Today, through technology, we’re more able to personalize it for each patient through, for example, wearable devices and other smart technology.
We’re committed to making sure this promise of better, easier care is upheld for everyone. As the science and research tells us, health equity can no longer be an aspirational goal. Equitable access to quality health care is an important yardstick of an advanced, democratic society. We strongly feel that each person who walks through the doors of the UC Davis Medical Center is a very special person, inclusive of their background, orientation, and material circumstance. Now, we just have to make them feel that way, too.
I recall the words of Mahatma Gandhi, who once said, “Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization.”
This sense of humanity, unity and partnerships reflects the best of UC Davis Health, where we “complete, not compete” with our health allies. We’re creating dynamic regional partnerships, making strategic investments to redefine the future of health care, expanding our physical capacity, and moving to value-based models of care delivery and reimbursement, all of which can help us reach deep into communities and neighborhoods that have historically faced barriers to care.
Our strategic shift seeks to reinvent the academic medical center model as a collaborative partner that facilitates a high level of patient care throughout Northern California, thereby better utilizing the region’s health care assets and bringing higher-level care delivery closer to home for patients.
As a health system, our promise is to put our patients at the center of everything we do, each and every day. We hope you enjoy reading about the many ways we are doing just that.
